On Saturday, spectators sported umbrellas to shade themselves from a steady sun, but over the weekend those umbrellas were used in their more typical fashion as the area was hit by consistent precipitation. As a result, the Northside Easter tournament, which was scheduled to resume on Monday at South Creek High School, was postponed.
“It’s kind of just the way things have been all year: cold and wet. So we’re a little bit used to adverse conditions and having to move things around,” Northside coach Keith Boyd said.
The action is scheduled to resume today at 1 p.m. when Hertford takes on Bertie in a semifinal matchup and will be followed by another semifinal battle between Northside and Mattamuskeet. After that, the winners from those respective games will clash in a battle for the tourney title.
The extra day off will offer the athletes a chance to rest up and will also afford coaches the luxury of having more arms available come game time.
“There’s no real advantage one way or the other, but the only thing that we can all gain from the day off is that now there’s another days rest for those pitchers who threw on Saturday,” Boyd said.
On the first day of the tournament, Boyd’s Panthers were red-hot as they topped Columbia 14-0 behind a Colby Freeman no-hitter. Northside stepped up at the plate as well as on the pitcher’s mound as its lineup produced eight hits in the five-inning victory.
The Panthers will head into today’s matchup with Mattamuskeet with all their arms ready to go.
“We got a great performance out of Colby Freeman and it allowed us to save Ryan Arthur and Caleb Sherman for Monday, which now turned into Tuesday,” Boyd said.
Boyd said he was not worried that his team’s momentum would being ruined by the extra day off.
“I don’t think it will have too much of an affect just for the simple fact we’ve been going through these situations all year,” Boyd said. “It’s been hard for anybody to really get on a roll. But, I think we’ll come out and handle it as well as possible. We’re certainly not going to use it as an excuse.”